Shortage of stamped papers in Hazara Division has put the local people in trouble and added to their financial woes.
Stamped papers worth Rs20, Rs30 and Rs50 are not available in the courts of Haripur, Abbottabad and Mansehra, official sources said, forcing people to buy papers valuing Rs100, Rs150 and even Rs200 for common use.
“I had to buy a stamped paper for Rs100 for my college application because I was told that the regular Rs20 paper was not available anywhere,” said Mohsin Ali, a student.
Meanwhile, the sources said that some vendors are purchasing stamped papers form Rawalpindi and Attock districts and selling them in Haripur on profit. They said that stamped papers valuing Rs20 are being sold for Rs50, those worth Rs50 for Rs65, while those wroth Rs70 and Rs100 are being sold for Rs120 and Rs150 respectively.
Stamped paper vendors, however, put the blame on the district accounts office, saying that the office is not issuing them the papers.
“I bring these papers from Attock and each of them costs me Rs2 to Rs3 extra, excluding transportation charges,” said a vendor requesting anonymity.
The vendor said that the shortage of stamped papers has badly affected legal affairs and to ease the burden on the general public, he has been buying the papers from Punjab and selling them locally.
The vendor said that in Haripur alone, stamped papers worth Rs150,000 to Rs200,000 are being sold for legal proceedings and documentation.
However, a provincial bar council member, Waheed Azhar, claimed that the authenticity of the papers bought from Punjab is unclear and could be challenged.
“All the transactions and deeds made on the papers bearing the stamp of Punjab could be challenged,” said Azhar, adding that these include financial transactions, undertaking for marriage, tenancy and vehicle transfer deed and others.
These stamped papers have no legal record in the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) treasury, which is why their legal status is dubious, Azhar reasoned. He added that it was also a loss to the provincial kitty because the revenue is being transferred to Punjab.
When contacted, District Accounts Officer Sardar Haroon confirmed the shortage of stamped papers in Hazara. He said that for the last quarter, there was delay in printing of the papers by the Controller Stamps Karachi.
He added that Rs100 million allocated for printing of stamped papers has been pending with the central office that prints the papers.
Haroon said that district and sessions judge Haripur spoke to concerned officials, including the assistant secretary of Stamps Board of Revenue Peshawar, who promised to expedite the process.
He also expressed doubts about the legal status of the papers brought from Punjab, adding that every treasury in K-P keeps the record of counterfoil of each of the paper sold out to anyone.
However, since the papers being used here have no record, their genuineness is questionable, he added.
“Controller Stamps Karachi is the only printing agency that supplies stamped papers across the country and when that is facing a shortage of printed stamped papers, then how could someone claim that the papers bought from Punjab are not fake,” said Haroon.
He, however, said that the situation is expected to improve within the next 15 days.
Published in The Express Tribune, September 12th, 2012.
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